Politico: Ukraine Crushed Russian Black Sea Fleet

They turned it into a minor force.

Russia’s Black Sea Fleet was once considered central to Vladimir Putin’s attempted conquest of Ukraine. But the Russian navy and air force have suffered from Ukraine's innovative attacks, turning the force into a minor one.

Politico reports.

The news publisher notes that when Putin launched his all-out invasion of Ukraine in February, the Crimea-based fleet was at the center of the action, launching Kalibr cruise missiles at military and civilian targets deep into the country, blocking access to the country’s ports, and threatening an amphibious landing on Odesa.

However, Kyiv has since seized the initiative by sinking several ships, including its flagship cruiser Moskva. An aviation regiment of the Black Sea Fleet, based at the Saki airbase in Crimea, was also hit hard this month by strikes. About half of the unit's aircraft were destroyed, a Western official said, confirming other officials' estimates.

While Russian submarines do fire into Ukraine from time to time, the fleet hasn’t lived up to the expectations set at the start of the war and has settled into what amounts to a defensive crouch either in port or well offshore to avoid Ukrainian attack, according to Politico.

Since the spring, the Black Sea Fleet’s problems have added up, the result of poor leadership, aging equipment, and a hubris the Ukrainians have been only too happy to exploit. The string of military disasters led to the firing of the fleet’s commander, Admiral Igor Osipov.

“The losses to Russian amphibious ships are arguably more important than the Moskva,” said Rob Lee, senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute who tracks the militaries of Russia and Ukraine. The losses impede Russia’s ability to move troops and equipment around Crimea by sea.

Another Defence Department spokesman told Politico that the reluctance to actually use its ships as a fighting force means the fleet has been rendered virtually impotent and “hasn’t been a thing for several months”.

One Western diplomat agreed with that assessment, telling Politico “the Russian Black Sea Fleet is broken, and is now only used as a defensive force with occasional cruise missile strikes”.

According to him, keeping the fleet well out at sea “severely limits Russia’s campaign options” in southern Ukraine. The fleet itself is made up of small missile-laden corvettes and frigates, landing craft and six submarines. It still has over 30 ships at sea or in port, but their effectiveness and ability to manoeuvre has been severely hampered after Moskva’s air defences and the radar screen provided by Snake Island were eliminated.